In the past, the transportation of small packages has, to a large degree, involved a relatively high content of non-automated operations, including for instance, the manual transcription and recording of information regarding the package's consignor and consignee, its origin and destination, package weight, the correct shipping rate and similar information. In addition, the transportation of small packages has required considerable physical manipulation of the packages themselves, involving such operations as hand sorting based on information read from shipping labels, a separate weighing operation, manual transfer of the packages to the trucks used for their shipment and so forth. In addition, the creation of shipment records, billing documents and the like has had a significant amount of manual procedures connected therewith.
While the older methods can be used, they frequently entail costs so disproportionate to the value of the package shipped as to be cost ineffective. Furthermore, even in those instances when excessive costs can be absorbed, manual systems tend to be prone to error both in the physical transfer of the packages, and in the records which their movement generates. Equally objectionable is the voluminous paper trail required to assure adequate records of their transit, and the difficulty involved in tracing the movement and whereabouts of a particular package at any given time.